As the Philadelphia Eagles prepare to battle the Kansas City Chiefs in this year’s Super Bowl, Philly fans are doing what they do best: shocking (and entertaining) the world with their wild traditions and borderline dangerous methods of celebration. Naturally, it falls to Philadelphia journalists to report on these bizarre, and oddly heartwarming, public displays of affection for my own native city and its wonderful sports teams. However, when you’re dealing with a fanbase that is known to jump on hotel awnings, climb greased poles, and commit acts of slapstick comedy that would make Chaplin, Keaton, and the Three Stooges proud, it can be difficult to keep your finger on the pulse of the action.
I spoke to Stephanie Farr, self-proclaimed “jawnalist” for the Philadelphia Inquirer, who covers “what makes Philly weird, wild, and wonderfully unique,” and has been writing about Philadelphia sports fans for about half a decade, to get the scoop on getting the scoop. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Nadira Goffe: How do you go about finding fans from viral videos or chaotic moments, like that guy who shotgunned seven beers on top of a greased pole?
Stephanie Farr: That’s not an easy thing to do. I was on Broad Street that night and I became aware of him being on the pole shotgunning beers when a full can of Twisted Tea went very close to my head, and very close to the police officers right next to me, causing me to look up [and wonder], Why are people throwing full cans of Twisted Tea? I saw him at the top of the pole and I saw the crowd egging him on. More and more people were throwing him beers and he was just like, “Keep them coming, keep them coming.” I was there maybe 40 minutes, an hour, and I saw him chug seven, but who knows, it could have been a lot more.
The police come in with the horses and the riot gear on, they push the crowd back, but he’s still on top of the pole. So I wasn’t able to go up to him and ask him, Hey, what’s your name? What’s your phone number so I can talk to you later? But what did happen is, either that morning or the next day, one of the folks on our [investigative team] reaches out to me and says, Hey, I got the list of people that were arrested or that were cited by police last night. So I start going through the list of names to see if one of those people might be this guy. A quick search of “Sean Hagan” pulls up a story from many years prior when he had run onto the field at Citizens Bank Park in a full “Red Man” suit. I was like, I’m going to guess this is the guy who was on top of the pole. I found him on Twitter and I found that he had retweeted a video of himself on top of the pole that night. That’s how I was able to connect with him. It was one of the most Philly interviews I’ve ever had. I mean, it was gold. His quotes were unbelievable.
Wait, what do you mean, the interview was one of the “most Philly interviews” that you’ve ever had?
I’m a transplant. I moved to the area 15 years ago thinking I’d stay five, and I’m still here because I love the people. I think one of the things that’s very unique to Philadelphians is that they are just so brutally honest about themselves and their lives, even with strangers. Why was this guy so open with me about getting arrested, not only when he was a teen in a Red Man suit, but being on top of this pole? He’s like, Yeah, I’m an idiot for doing this. In many different situations and settings, whether it was back when I was covering murders or doing really wild and weird stories like what I do now, I love Philadelphians because they’re brutally honest about themselves and they’re brutally honest to the people that they encounter. Maybe brutally isn’t the right word, but blunt. Bluntly honest.
Right. There’s the “no one likes us, we don’t care” mentality. (For the uninitiated, that’s part of a chant co-opted by Eagles center Jason Kelce after the team won the 2018 Super Bowl.) I find that one to be a lot more accurate than some of our other slogans.
I posted a story today about [the new Eagles slogan] “It’s a Philly Thing.” Now that does not sit well with me.
I wanted to ask you about that, because I also cringe at that!
I thought I was alone and I was afraid to admit it at first.
I think we have so many other better phrases.
Yeah. Right. It’s so generic. When I first heard it I was like, Am I supposed to know immediately what this “Philly thing” is? Do the Eagles know what it is? It sounded so generic and uninspired. I did a quick Google search and found out that if you put other cities in that phrase, you’ll get dozens of results. “It’s a Denver thing” is an album, “It’s a Chicago thing” is a slogan for their women’s soccer team, and then two years ago the Dodgers used “It’s an LA thing” for their slogan. So whatever it is, it’s not new and it’s not just ours. I thought, Why are the Eagles running with this so hard?
A quick search showed that [Eagles quarterback Jalen] Hurts said it at a press conference in December and that’s kind of where it started. I was down covering fans after the NFC championship on January 29th [and] I was just standing in a sea of people and everywhere I looked, someone was wearing an “It’s a Philly Thing” shirt. There were vendors all over and at one point I stopped to take a photo of a vendor who was selling pink “It’s a Philly Thing” shirts in front of City Hall.
This drunk young woman comes up to me and she’s like, “Can I use your phone to log into my Cash App? Mine is dead and I need this shirt.” I was like, “No, you cannot, and you should not be putting your financial information into any stranger’s phone.” Then she tried to log into the vendor’s phone and the vendor was like, “No.” As she walked away, the vendor and I smiled at each other like, “Hey, we did the right thing.” But it felt like, Well, was that a Philly moment? Her being drunk and asking to log onto a stranger’s phone, the vendor selling the shirts, me telling her with kind of a rude tone but also genuine concern, “Don’t go putting your account information into [strangers’] phones …”
The conclusion that I came to thanks to the help of a reader is that it’s not a rallying cry like “Go Birds” or “Philly vs. Everybody” or “No one likes us, we don’t care.” But it does work as a response and a reply. If your relative from Wisconsin says, “Why is there an Eagles fan who runs into a pillar before every post-season game for good luck?” You can be like, “It’s a Philly thing.” “Why are there people climbing greased poles?” “It’s a Philly thing.” “Why is [former lead guitarist of the Philly band The War on Drugs, Kurt Vile’s] brother crowd-surfing on Broad Street and slingshotting jello shots to the crowd?” “Well, it’s a Philly thing.” It becomes shorthand for, “Yes, this is something we do here. Yes, it’s amazing. And no, I don’t have the time or patience to explain it to you.”
What is the most surprising story that you’ve reported on in terms of Philly sports fandoms?
Sean Hagan was pretty good, just because to get arrested twice for doing things to show how passionate you are for your team, that to me is ballsy—but he also beat the charges! But Jigar Desai, the Eagles pillar guy, he’s interesting because he’s just a dad and he’s got this nice corporate job, [he’s a] very smart, middle-of-the-road kind of guy, and then just one day goes completely and utterly viral for this moment of trying to pump up Eagles fans on a train [and running into a pillar in the train station by mistake—a moment that was caught on video]. I don’t think he was expecting it, but he definitely leaned hard into it once it happened and once he realized what was going on. He [told me that] a lot of people came up to him in the aftermath of that video going viral and said, “Thank you for the laugh, thanks for the passion.” But a lot of people also said, “Thank you for being an inspiration.” He was at first confused by that, but a lot of people told him that they didn’t think that they could have survived the embarrassment of a moment like that of themselves going viral, and that it really reinforced to him how important it is to laugh at yourself at times like that, and that’s something that he wanted to teach his kids.
So there are these really ridiculous things that go on here, but sometimes they also have a really touching and poignant undercurrent as well. There’s Marybelle Alston who went viral last year, she was 88 at the time. She and her daughter are area natives but they live in Florida now and they’re huge Philly sports fans. Before and after every game, Marybelle’s daughter plays a song on the TV and Marybelle dances. They did Janet Jackson one time and Janet tweeted at them. What her daughter told me is that Marybelle has dementia and this is one of the things that brings her great joy in life, is to dance and to support the team from afar even though they’re not here anymore, and they do it together.
Rob Dunphy, who’s probably one of our more famous guys: He’s the guy with the tattoos all over his chest, of the Phanatic’s mouth as his belly button. He’s interesting because he’s got a sponsorship deal with a local casino. You go on his Twitter feed, he’s got deals and he’s pretty open about it. Our sports fans become so popular here in Philly that they get sponsorship contracts. It’s like, What kind of world are we living in?
Okay, If I’m making the Philly Fan Hall of Fame, I’m including Rob Dunphy because securing a sponsorship is phenomenal. Are there any other legendary Philly fan moments or people that you would like to submit to a potential Philly Fan Hall of Fame (that I think we should actually create and put in the Mummers Museum)?
Two that are coming to mind: There was a guy who was caught by the Eagles fan cam just cursing out the refs and everything. The next day, it was discovered that he’s [the dean of admissions at Penn]. There’s a woman who went viral, they called her the Mare of Havertown, after Mare of Easttown, who was caught at an Eagles game clearly mouthing the words, “Fuck you, ref,” or something like that.
Those are moments that went viral, but if I’m putting a Philly fan moment in the Hall of Fame it’s got to be just our celebrations on Broad Street. I hate to say greased-pole climbing—that’s a very local thing and it is really weird and incredible. It’s also very dangerous so I don’t want to promote it. But I think that what is so incredible about the city is the way that Broad Street connects it from the north to the south, and how when you have a huge championship win—the NLCS, or the NFC East, or, fingers crossed, this Sunday—people just flood out into that street like it’s a river, and it’s just one large party from top to bottom. When the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2018, I walked from Xfinity Live! down at the stadium complex to City Hall and back.
I mentioned Jelloman, who’s Kurt Vile’s brother, a guy named Paul Vile who I actually interviewed for my We the People [profiles of Philadelphians] series several years ago. I don’t know if he still does it, but he would go around to festivals and sell jello shots and make money and sell T-shirts and stuff like that. Well, he shows up on Broad Street after the NFC Championship and [takes] like a piece of plywood or something, [and puts it] on the crowd and goes crowd-surfing and slingshots jello shots to the crowd. Then, by the next day, he’s got a T-shirt he made of him doing that to sell. So there’s also this hustle factor, right? You become a well-known fan around here, you can kind of make that into a hustle, like Dunphy did with his thing.
I’ve seen that clip so many times. I had no idea that was Kurt Vile’s brother.
He’s so interesting because he’s also a bricklayer. He’s like this bricklayer, he’s Jelloman, and he’s Kurt Vile’s brother. He’s just fascinating. The day I profiled him, he drove a van up to the top of the art museum steps. I was like, “How did you do that? How is that possible? Isn’t there security?” But he just kind of finds a way.
Is there any sort of legend or famed “Philly fan does crazy thing” story that you have long chased but have been unable to reach?
I don’t know that there is, because they kind of grow out organically from these events. It’s interesting because I’m not a huge sports fan. I didn’t grow up in a sports family, my dad never watched sports, I didn’t play sports, and when I moved to Philadelphia, I remember an editor at my old paper told me I wouldn’t have a choice but to like sports and I got really offended. I was like, That’s ridiculous. I don’t need to care about things that have no impact on my life.
Then I came here in ’07, and in ’08 the Phillies go to the World Series, and I got it. I got that it’s about being a part of something bigger than yourself and that ability of sports to bring us together. We’re a great city filled with great people who will give you the shirt off their back. They may chide you while they do it, but they will give it to you. But we’re also divided on a lot of things and this is the one thing that we can get together on and do. I wish it was school funding or affordable housing, of course, but this is what we got. I grew up in small towns and I’ve never felt anything like the electricity in the air when our teams are doing well. It’s life-giving, in a way.
That’s why I come home every time our teams are doing well because there really is … I mean, I try to articulate it to anyone but it’s really difficult unless they experience it themselves, but it really …
You hate to say it, but it’s a Philly thing, right?
It is. I was at the Eagles parade in 2018 and there was also a guy who had climbed on top of a greased pole and was shotgunning beers. This guy was also, somehow, trying to roll a joint. People were handing him beers, but then at the same time criticizing the way he was rolling the joint, which was one of the most Philly experiences I’ve personally ever had, and I’ve had 26 years’ worth. Why do you think Philly is such a breeding ground for these kinds of bizarre but really, really amazing moments?
One of the best explanations I heard about Philly is, other cities, someone will see you on the side of the road with a flat tire and be like, “Oh, sorry about your luck.” In Philly, they’ll see you on the side of the road with a flat tire, pull over, help you change your tire, but also berate you the whole time they’re changing your tire because you shouldn’t have run over that nail in the first place, or you should’ve known how to change your own tire.
We’re accepting and we’re all a little weird. Maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s the history, maybe it’s the people. I don’t know where it comes from, but I’m really happy to be a part of it now. I think that it makes life more interesting and it makes the world a more interesting place.
I couldn’t agree more. One last thing: Go Birds!
Go Birds!
